6060: U.S. officials see failed Haiti policy (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: nozier@tradewind.net

November 29, 2000 U.S. officials see failed Haiti  policy 
 By Ben Barber THE WASHINGTON TIMES


U.S. officials, having washed their hands of this  week's Haitian
election, say they recognize their policies in the impoverished
Caribbean nation have failed and they are casting about for a new
direction.  "The story of Haiti is we tried and we failed," said one
U.S. official, who spoke yesterday on the condition he not be          
identified. "The problem with Haiti is they want us to fix it, and
that's not the way you get things  fixed."A State Department official, 
who also asked to remain anonymous, said: "People are taking a hard look
at our Haiti  policy and what comes next." Haiti was hailed as a triumph
for Clinton administration policy after U.S. troops landed there in 1994
to oust a  military dictatorship and restore the rule of the elected
 president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. But relations have deteriorated so
much that the United States did not even send observers for Sunday's
election, in which Mr. Aristide is expected to have won a
new term in the face of a low turnout and an opposition boycott.        
 The latest voting follows elections to the Haitian senate in May that
the United States says failed to meet  standards of fairness. Congress
told the administration not to channel any foreign aid through the
Haitian government until the State Department could certify that the
outcome of those elections had been free and fair.Mr. Aristide's Lavalas
party won 16 of the 17 seats then, but about half the winners were short
of the votes needed to avoid runoff elections, according to
international election observers. Nevertheless, the Aristide-dominated
election commission certified them as winners. Ten more senate seats
were up for grabs Sunday, and when results are tallied later this week
it is expected that Mr. Aristide's party will be declared winners. 
Opposition leaders who boycotted the polls say the balloting was
unfair and that few people voted. State Department spokesman Richard
Boucher said yesterday that U.S. foreign aid would continue to flow    
through private relief agencies — not through the Haitian government —
until the election process meets the standards set by the U.S. Congress.
"We believe in democracy in this hemisphere, as do many others in this
hemisphere, and we're willing to work on it," Mr. Boucher said at a
briefing yesterday.  "But the flaws that are there [in Haiti] need to be
remedied by the local authorities."And there are a lot of indications —
including low voter turnout, the violence that was in the pre-election 
period — that show that they need reconciliation within Haitian
society."

 The U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Haiti was
effectively a prisoner of its own history of underdevelopment and
dictatorship. "Nobody has anything good to say about improving
conditions in Haiti," he said. "Haiti is considered a failure.It's not
that our aid programs didn't work. There's a sort of psychology at work
that we were never able to crack. "We poured a lot of money into it and
never were able to turn it around. [President] Clinton tried to help.
[House International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin
A.] Gilman fought us every step of the way. But that's not
why they failed. "There's no group of people willing to take charge and
work with the problems." Mr. Boucher also expressed exasperation.     
"There is always a limit. You can't impose democracy.                   
"People on the ground in the country have to make thechoice, have to
make the decisions and have to take the steps necessary to make
democracy grow," he said. The Agency for International Development (AID)
is sending $85 million in humanitarian aid via private  agencies to
Haiti in the current year, said an AID official.The money supplies
hundreds of thousands of people their only meal of the day. Mr. Boucher
said U.S. aid programs aim to increase incomes for the poor, slow
environmental degradation, improve economic and education performance
and support the provision of health and family planning
services, including HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis programs.